9 Unbreakable Facts About Dolph Lundgren

Swedish-born actor Dolph Lundgren turns 60 years old on November 3, a fact that may make fans of his performance as Soviet bone-crusher Ivan Drago in 1985’s Rocky IV feel very old. While Drago might be his most memorable role, Lundgren’s personal life and career have taken several fascinating turns. Check out some facts about his education, his Hollywood travels, and the time he nearly punched co-star Sylvester Stallone into an early grave.

1. HE MIGHT BE A GENIUS.

Born Hans Lundgren in 1957, the actor told NPR in 2014 that childhood allergies kept him out of sports and focused on school work. Growing up in Stockholm, Lundgren had ambitions to come live in America but was financially strapped. To make the move, he used his prowess in chemical engineering to graduate from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and earn a Fulbright scholarship to MIT. But before he could settle in on campus, Lundgren’s life took a detour: He met model and actress Grace Jones during a gig as a bouncer in New York City and decided to pursue acting instead.

2. SYLVESTER STALLONE THOUGHT HE WAS TOO TALL TO PLAY IVAN DRAGO.

Dating Jones led to Lundgren’s first onscreen appearance as a henchman in the 1985 James Bond film A View to a Kill. Not long after, he was cast by Sylvester Stallone to appear as Soviet Union boxer Ivan Drago in Rocky IV—but only after Stallone changed his mind. Internet opinions vary on Stallone’s actual height—estimates range from 5-feet 7-inches to just under six feet—but Stallone himself thought the six-foot, five-inch Lundgren was going to be too much of a stretch for the character of Drago and rejected him during their first meeting. Lundgren persevered, getting into boxing trunks and sending the photos to Stallone, who eventually relented and hired him six months later.

3. HE ALMOST KILLED STALLONE.

Maybe Stallone had the right idea after all. During rehearsals for their climatic fight scene, Stallone kept urging Lundgren to hit him harder. That was a mistake, as Lundgren—who had trained in karate and other martial arts—hit his co-star so hard in the chest that Stallone's heart began to swell. "Later that night my blood pressure goes up to 260, I go to hospital, they put me in an emergency jet, and fly me back to America,” Stallone recalled. “Next thing I know I’m in intensive care for five days with nuns walking around.”

4. HE HUNG OUT WITH ANDY WARHOL.

During his time prowling New York with Jones, Lundgren was a regular at Studio 54, which was then the city’s premier nightclub attraction. According to Lundgren, Warhol came up to him and asked what he was famous for before taking his picture. Warhol then invited him to do a magazine shoot with Jones.

5. HE PACKED HEAT AROUND NEW YORK.

In 2012, Lundgren told Men’s Health that he was sufficiently nervous about the crime rate in the pre-gentrified New York of the early 1980s that he bought two guns that he kept on his person—one in an ankle holster and one strapped to his chest. “I was always nervous that I'd be caught,” he said. “It's funny, part of me was afraid of the cops, and the other part was afraid of being mugged. It wasn't a nice feeling.”

6. HE ONCE BOXED A PROFESSIONAL FIGHTER.

In June 2007, Lundgren accepted an exhibition boxing match for Russian television against Oleg Taktarov, a former UFC competitor. According to Taktarov, Lundgren stepped in after promoters failed to secure the services of Mike Tyson. After five competitive rounds, Taktarov won by decision.

7. HE HAD SOME PROBLEMS WITH HE-MAN.

Lundgren’s highest-profile role of the 1980s outside of Drago was embodying He-Man in a live-action adaptation of the popular Mattel toy line. Because of Lundgren’s thick Swedish accent, producers seriously considered dubbing him over with a voiceover actor. But after several looping sessions, they deemed his vocal performance sufficient. (The movie bombed anyway.)

8. HE TURNED DOWN GLADIATOR.

Or a version of it, at least. The Oscar-winning film was released in 2000 and starred Russell Crowe as Maximus, the combat specialist who fights to be released from under the thumb of sadistic ruler Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix). Lundgren turned down the script six years prior. “I thought it was a piece of crap,” he told Esquire in 2015. “It had no action. This was before Russell Crowe and director Ridley Scott were on board. I can't remember what happened, but I remember not liking it. Huge mistake. But another skimpy outfit?”

9. HE MIGHT RETURN AS DRAGO.

While a lot of Lundgren’s recent films have skipped a theatrical release, 2018 may prove to be a renaissance period for the actor. He’s set to appear as undersea King Nereus in Aquaman opposite Jason Momoa. Lundgren has also dropped some not-very-subtle hints on social media about returning as Ivan Drago for Creed II, the sequel to 2015’s successful expansion of the Rocky franchise. The possibility seemed remote just a few years ago, when Lundgren swore that "I'm not pulling the old Ivan Drago shorts on again."

Winning an Oscar is, for most, a once-in-a-lifetime achievement. Unless you’re Walt Disney, who won 22. Nevertheless, owning a little gold guy is such a rarity that you’d think their owners would be a little more careful with them. Now, not all of these losses are the winners' fault—but some of them certainly are, Colin Firth.

1. ANGELINA JOLIE

After Angelina Jolie planted a kiss on her brother and made the world wrinkle their noses, she went onstage and collected a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role as Lisa in Girl, Interrupted. She later presented the trophy to her mother, Marcheline Bertrand. The statuette may have been boxed up and put into storage with the rest of Marcheline’s belongings when she died in 2007, but it hasn’t yet surfaced. “I didn’t actually lose it,” Jolie said, “but nobody knows where it is at the moment.”

2. WHOOPI GOLDBERG

In 2002, Whoopi Goldberg sent her Ghost Best Supporting Actress Oscar back to the Academy to have it cleaned and detailed, because apparently you can do that. The Academy then sent the Oscar on to R.S. Owens Co. of Chicago, the company that manufactures the trophies. When it arrived in the Windy City, however, the package was empty. It appeared that someone had opened the UPS package, removed the Oscar, then neatly sealed it all back up and sent it on its way. It was later found in a trash can at an airport in Ontario, California. The Oscar was returned to the Academy, who returned it to Whoopi without cleaning it. “Oscar will never leave my house again,” Goldberg said.

3. OLYMPIA DUKAKIS

When Olympia Dukakis’s Moonstruck Oscar was stolen from her home in 1989, she called the Academy to see if it could be replaced. “For $78,” they said, and she agreed that it seemed like a fair price. It was the only thing taken from the house.

4. MARLON BRANDO

“I don’t know what happened to the Oscar they gave me for On the Waterfront,” Marlon Brando wrote in his autobiography. “Somewhere in the passage of time it disappeared.” He also didn't know what happened to the Oscar that he had Sacheen Littlefeather accept for him in 1973. “The Motion Picture Academy may have sent it to me, but if it did, I don’t know where it is now.”

5. JEFF BRIDGES

Jeff Bridges had just won his Oscar in 2010 for his portrayal of alcoholic country singer Bad Blake in Crazy Heart, but it was already missing by the next year’s ceremony, where he was up for another one. He lost to Colin Firth for The King’s Speech. “It’s been in a few places since last year but I haven’t seen it for a while now,” the actor admitted. “I’m hoping it will turn up, especially now that I haven’t won a spare! But Colin deserves it. I just hope he looks after it better.” Which brings us to ...

6. COLIN FIRTH

Perhaps Jeff Bridges secretly cursed the British actor as he said those words, because Firth nearly left his new trophy on a toilet tank the very night he received it. After a night of cocktails at the Oscar after-parties in 2011, Firth allegedly had to be chased down by a bathroom attendant, who had found the eight-pound statuette in the bathroom stall. Notice we said allegedly: Shortly after those reports surfaced, Firth's rep issued a statement saying the "story is completely untrue. Though it did give us a good laugh."

7. MATT DAMON

When newbie writers Matt Damon and Ben Affleck took home Oscars for writing Good Will Hunting in 1998, it was one of those amazing Academy Award moments. Now, though, Damon isn’t sure where his award went. “I know it ended up at my apartment in New York, but unfortunately, we had a flood when one of the sprinklers went off when my wife and I were out of town and that was the last I saw of it,” Damon said in 2007.

8. MARGARET O'BRIEN

In 1945, seven-year-old Margaret O’Brien was presented with a Juvenile Academy Award for being the outstanding child actress of the year. About 10 years later, the O’Briens' maid took the award home to polish, as she had done before, but never came back to work. The missing Oscar was forgotten about when O’Brien’s mother died shortly thereafter, and when Margaret finally remembered to call the maid, the number had been disconnected. She ended up receiving a replacement from the Academy.

There’s a happy ending to this story, though. In 1995, a couple of guys were picking their way through a flea market when they happened upon the Oscar. They put it up for auction, which is when word got back to the Academy that the missing trophy had resurfaced. The guys who found the Oscar pulled it from auction and presented it, in person, to Margaret O’Brien. “I’ll never give it to anyone to polish again,” she said.

9. BING CROSBY

For years, Bing Crosby's Oscar for 1944’s Going My Way had been on display at his alma mater, Gonzaga University. In 1972, students walked into the school’s library to find that the 13-inch statuette had been replaced with a three-inch Mickey Mouse figurine instead. A week later, the award was found, unharmed, in the university chapel. “I wanted to make people laugh,” the anonymous thief later told the school newspaper.

10. HATTIE MCDANIEL

Hattie McDaniel, famous for her Supporting Actress win as Mammy in Gone with the Wind, donated her Best Actress Oscar to Howard University. It was displayed in the fine arts complex for a time, but went missing sometime in the 1960s. No one seems to know exactly when or how, but there are rumors that the Oscar was unceremoniously dumped into the Potomac by students angered by racial stereotypes such as the one she portrayed in the film.

Though the New York Toy Fair—the largest trade show for playthings in the western hemisphere—won't officially kick off until Saturday, February 17, kids and kids-at-heart are already finding much to get excited about as the world's biggest toy companies ready to unleash their newest wares on the world. One item that has gotten us—and fans of fine parody songs everywhere—excited is "Weird Al" Yankovic's induction into the Funko Pop! family. The accordion-loving songwriter behind hits like "Eat It," "White & Nerdy," "Amish Paradise," and "Smells Like Nirvana" shared the news via Twitter, and included what we can only hope is a final rendering of his miniaturized, blockheaded vinyl likeness:

In late December, Funko announced that a Weird Al toy would be coming in 2018 as part of the beloved brand's Pop Rocks series. Though we know he'll be joined by Alice Cooper, Kurt Cobain, Elton John, and the members of Mötley Crüe, there's no word yet on exactly when you’ll be able to get your hands on Pop! Al. But knowing that he's coming is enough … for now.